Two ordinances that affect homeless people in Aberdeen were finalized at Wednesday night’s Aberdeen City Council meeting.

One ordinance includes new restrictions on the city’s riverfront homeless camp. The new restrictions were made after three homeless advocates filed a federal lawsuit against the city, the mayor and the city engineer. A federal judge said the city would need to replace its permit system with time, place and manner restrictions.

Homeless people currently on the property will be allowed to live there for the time being, the ordinance states, but there are restrictions such as only having visitors from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., that illegal drugs are not allowed on the property, and that people should enter the property at the railroad crossing, near the Chehalis River Bridge overpass. The ordinance adds that the city will allow campers to live there “until a transitional period has expired and seasonal conditions are more conductive to obtaining alternative shelter arrangements.”

Council member Jeff Cook made an amendment to the ordinance so it says open alcohol containers are only allowed inside the area for personal use. The ordinance had originally said alcohol was not allowed on the property. The amendment and the ordinance were unanimously approved.

The other ordinance, to revise Aberdeen’s public camping laws, was also unanimously approved. It’s intended to make the city’s policies more in-line with a federal court decision in Boise that said cities can’t prosecute people for sleeping in public if they have nowhere else to go. Essentially, the ordinance makes it so when there’s no available shelter, the city can’t enforce unlawful camping on unused right-of-ways.

Council member Cook amended the city’s code further to make it so violations of the city’s public camping code is a civil infraction, instead of a misdemeanor.